Through the advice of some of the sages on this forum, I became aware of the importance of diligent tracking of time in the game world. Too often I find that the passage of time in the game world is so hand-waved and discordant that there is little effect for talents that halve the time of completing a task.

Also adventures need time pressure to keep the players experiencing a sense of Urgency. This can be a conscious shrinking window of opportunity, or a limited time before a pursuer is going to catch up with the PCs, etc. In order to convey a good sense of time passing, in my opinion you should not get in the habit of retconning or allowing rewinds in the time. This means that if time has passed it has passed and an opportunity is missed.

• In order to keep track of time and display it for the Players in live games, I have a little dial with a 24 hour clock I made and I move it as time in game passes
• In Online games I post significant passages of time in the chat as they occur

If there are situations where time is elapsing I will sometimes go a bit meta and give them a cutscene so they can see that the bad guys are hot on their trail, or up to something. Whenever possible I try to use cues that the characters themselves would be able to perceive though as far as the passage of time; such as sunrise, noon, sunset. This also makes it easier to remember that characters need food and water and rest.

In my role-playing career I have found that very few GMs do any kind of concrete time tracking, and will jump back and forth a lot in time either because the players forgot to do something or the GM forgets something. I think that making time too soft and amoebic has a negative effect on the perception of time passing in the game. Do you track time in the game, or do you not feel it is important?

I track time on a more macro level, day-to-day.

I need to step up my game for time inside that, but I often feel that it's better served by just having a general idea what time it is. However, my GMing style tends towards more relaxed daily schedules in the game, without having to rush to get something done within a window of opportunity only hours wide. I do generally try to give the players a good idea what time of day it is, at least.

If I were to something like Friends Like These or a game with a similarly complex time constraint, I would be more more careful about it.

I will be tracking each day by time A fter G eonosis ( x hours/days/etc AG ) as my group is considering playing mostly clones/jedi in the clone wars. Being military themed, I will probably try to keep a more concrete time tracking style as you suggest.

However to answer as your question I think it depends on the type of setting you have set. If it is military like mine, you probably should be stricter about time tracking. If it is largely exploration based like a team of archeologiststs then time is not as important as things would transpire much more slowly.

So if it is fast paced campaign, then keep track of time closely. If it is slower paced then it can be a bit looser.

I used to do the time tracking thing loosely but my players would not take talents that had to do with time as they felt they were a "stupid waste of xp" lol. I didn't really feel that was a good enough reason to do it but I did feel that adding time pressure was.

So for instance, how do you guys introduce that pressure into your games? How do you keep players from doing mundane shopping when there is a ticking clock? How much time until the Bounty Hunter arrives, or the Imperial fleet is finished dumping their garbage?

Also how do you make the Talents mean something as far as the half-the-time ability they sometimes give? In the past I would rarely get a case where I could have them competing with some one else to do the same thing. But how do you make the shortened time mean something if there is no perception of passing time for the characters?

4 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Also how do you make the Talents mean something as far as the half-the-time ability they sometimes give? In the past I would rarely get a case where I could have them competing with some one else to do the same thing. But how do you make the shortened time mean something if there is no perception of passing time for the characters?

Sometimes a task will take X many initiative slots to complete, and the time reduction talents reduce how many. This is mostly just for Astrogation checks and Galaxy Mapper though. A lot of the time the time taken to conduct a task just isn't that significant, whether because time is flexible or because it only takes a very small amount of time to begin with (time reduction doesn't help in structured time).

The only talent I can think of that actually only reduces time is Technical Aptitude. The others typically have the time reduction as a secondary, non-stacking effect.

17 hours ago, Archlyte said:

In my role-playing career I have found that very few GMs do any kind of concrete time tracking, and will jump back and forth a lot in time either because the players forgot to do something or the GM forgets something. I think that making time too soft and amoebic has a negative effect on the perception of time passing in the game. Do you track time in the game, or do you not feel it is important?

Is it a narrative game or more simulation? This makes a big difference to me in how important it is. With narrative mechanics there are ways within the rules to just handwave stuff (e.g., sped a Destiny point to just handwave having remembered to have packed something not on the character sheet or to have asked a question of an NPC in a previous encounter). In simulation games, it matters far more.

7 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I used to do the time tracking thing loosely but my players would not take talents that had to do with time as they felt they were a "stupid waste of xp" lol. I didn't really feel that was a good enough reason to do it but I did feel that adding time pressure was.

So for instance, how do you guys introduce that pressure into your games? How do you keep players from doing mundane shopping when there is a ticking clock? How much time until the Bounty Hunter arrives, or the Imperial fleet is finished dumping their garbage?

Also how do you make the Talents mean something as far as the half-the-time ability they sometimes give? In the past I would rarely get a case where I could have them competing with some one else to do the same thing. But how do you make the shortened time mean something if there is no perception of passing time for the characters?

What would be an example of a talent that has to do with time? I don't recall passage of time being a thing with talents beyond 'once per encounter or session'.

Just now, micheldebruyn said:

What would be an example of a talent that has to do with time? I don't recall passage of time being a thing with talents beyond 'once per encounter or session'.

There are some that say a success allows a task to be performed in "half the time" and the like.

12 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

What would be an example of a talent that has to do with time? I don't recall passage of time being a thing with talents beyond 'once per encounter or session'.

Technical Aptitude, Galaxy Mapper, Outdoorsman, I think Utinni!, not sure of others, but I'd guess there are.

Technical Aptitude is -25%, the others are -50% I believe.

17 hours ago, Archlyte said:

How do you keep players from doing mundane shopping when there is a ticking clock?

For myself, this is the moment I understand that I have failed as a GM to create a ticking clock compelling enough for the players to care about. It's either of no benefit to them financially, or there's no driving narrative, or (usually...) I haven't provided enough information to allow them to proceed and they just give up frustrated. Plenty of all three in my past, but the last one is almost always because I made the situation too complicated and "clever". It's not that I necessarily need to simplify a goal, but more that I need to learn to provide the right information and context so the players can eventually visualize the connections I created.

17 hours ago, Archlyte said:

How much time until the Bounty Hunter arrives, or the Imperial fleet is finished dumping their garbage?

This is entirely dependent on the needs of the story. The game specifies two time structures: narrative time, and structured time. But narrative time can be sliced as many ways above structured time as you need, though basic measurements like hours, days, or weeks are easier to manage.

On 8/22/2020 at 4:04 PM, Archlyte said:

In my role-playing career I have found that very few GMs do any kind of concrete time tracking, and will jump back and forth a lot in time either because the players forgot to do something or the GM forgets something.

I think as a player I'd find that frustrating if it happened a lot. As a GM I move forward 99% of the time, though I'll allow a "I remembered to do this important thing before we left, remember? <roll, roll> Yes, I remembered..." type of situation if it's important.

On 8/23/2020 at 7:21 AM, HappyDaze said:

Is it a narrative game or more simulation? This makes a big difference to me in how important it is. With narrative mechanics there are ways within the rules to just handwave stuff (e.g., sped a Destiny point to just handwave having remembered to have packed something not on the character sheet or to have asked a question of an NPC in a previous encounter). In simulation games, it matters far more.

I'm glad you asked this and I wish I had thought of it before. I would say that my GMing style for this game has definitely drifted further and further in Simulation, and so I think that for the Narrative approach what I was advocating may not be right.

I do allow a Destiny Point for something to be in the gear, but generally I have gone to Hard Inventory and Resource Management.

So I would say that my style is certainly more simulation.

15 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I'm glad you asked this and I wish I had thought of it before. I would say that my GMing style for this game has definitely drifted further and further in Simulation, and so I think that for the Narrative approach what I was advocating may not be right.

I do allow a Destiny Point for something to be in the gear, but generally I have gone to Hard Inventory and Resource Management.

So I would say that my style is certainly more simulation.

Be warned, I found that my enjoyment of this ruleset was hampered the more heavily I favored my simulationist side. I really like simulationist gaming, but I find that Star Wars as a setting leans away from it and this system, in particular, tries to take that lean and create a gulf. If you spend enough effort, you can counter it, but that's effort not necessarily spent on the enjoyable parts of the gaming experience (i.e., it makes the funtime hobby feel more and more like work). You may not have the same experience, but if you start finding that you do, I suggest quickly changing either your approach to the system or changing your system out entirely before frustration sets in.

7 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Be warned, I found that my enjoyment of this ruleset was hampered the more heavily I favored my simulationist side.

Agreed. Funny enough, the more I've dispensed with trees, and many many Talents, and stim-packs and other simulationist baggage, the more I've enjoyed the GMing experience.

5 hours ago, whafrog said:

Agreed. Funny enough, the more I've dispensed with trees, and many many Talents, and stim-packs and other simulationist baggage, the more I've enjoyed the GMing experience.

Of course, I tend to prefer simulationist games, so while I can find this game enjoyable for a short time so long as I'm not fighting against it, it doesn't tend to hold onto my attention nearly as long as a good simulationist game.

On 8/31/2020 at 1:59 AM, HappyDaze said:

Be warned, I found that my enjoyment of this ruleset was hampered the more heavily I favored my simulationist side. I really like simulationist gaming, but I find that Star Wars as a setting leans away from it and this system, in particular, tries to take that lean and create a gulf. If you spend enough effort, you can counter it, but that's effort not necessarily spent on the enjoyable parts of the gaming experience (i.e., it makes the funtime hobby feel more and more like work). You may not have the same experience, but if you start finding that you do, I suggest quickly changing either your approach to the system or changing your system out entirely before frustration sets in.

Sorry for the wall of text here

Thank you Happy and Whafrog, I agree with what you guys are saying. I had the same realization the other day and started swinging back a little toward Narrative in the way I handle the dice and a few other things. I would say I am still pretty far on the sim side as I tend to run this game as "The World's Deepest MMORPG" rather than in story game mode. Having said that I am realizing that there is a too far in this game and it does have an elastic but finite point of customization.

I deleted the trees, changed combat to Strain damage first (both ideas being spearheaded by the players in my main group) and I went to hard inventory and time accounting. That having been said, I found that Traveller-like fuel counting was sometimes pretty anti-setting as you said. So I eventually went back to Narrative Lightspeed Travels.

I had this whole epiphany with one group of players in a game I was running a few months back. They had drifted completely into narrative play and were not interfacing with the rules or the setting at all. In essence, they were using the game as a platform for Dramatic Acting and were more or less ignoring the game. To be clear, I am not describing players ignoring my railed adventure or anything like that (as I rarely GM that way and prefer sandbox/emergent style play), but instead they ignored everything that was not melodrama. Over the years I have looked for more and more of what I would call RPA (Role-Play Acting) but I found my limit lol.

We had a session that was pretty much flawless as far as story execution and RPA, but it left me feeling really empty. We weren't playing a game so much as telling a story. I know that may sound great to some, but it really wasn't very fun in the end. So after that I examined that group and I realized that one thing that they had in common was a lack of interest in the game side of things. They didn't want to learn the system or the setting, they just wanted to explore the motivations of their characters.

Being an Old guy, I have been delving into the OSR movement in TTRPGs. I find that it does have quite a few satisfying answers to what has been ailing me. I have no use whatsoever for D&D any more after playing it for 30+ years. I don't enjoy the way it plays and the culture of trope worship that has developed. I don't want to kill an owlbear just to check that trope box for the 558th time.

But one thing I hate in the OSR is their tolerance of meta. I want players to try to be clever and come up with great solutions, but not to the detriment of immersion.

I do absolutely think you guys are right though, and I am trying to find that balance point. Thanks again

I'll chime in as well since I'm running an arc that kinda focuses on time passing more. Similar to things that have already been said.

I, personally, only focus on time as an instrument of story progress. If my team is taking absolutely forever to get past some small hurdle because they keep stalling and discussing and doubling back, I'll just tell them out right "If ya'll don't make a decision then time is going to pass because you're spending more time on this". Sometimes this is me trying to prod them along because they've spent the last hour trying to find out how to rip off a single throw-away shop owner I made up at the last minute and can we PLEASE move on! Sometimes, though, I'm simply letting them know about the time in regards to how I see it within the game: a resource.

The current arc we are on has them crash landed on the planet Weik, which is a low-tech (almost no-tech) planet. One of the PC's is a droid and of course they're all using blasters that need to be recharged and have a set amount of supplies they salvaged from the wreck. As a consequence of this, their Droid has only a certain amount of time before he will need to be recharged. Now, since he's a PC I'm being very generous with his time allowance, but sooner or later they are going to find themselves in a situation where he is low on power and either a solution needs to be found or they will have to find a way to carry him. So, when they are making logistical choices, I am careful to tell them the estimated time of travel.

Overall, I track time strictly or loosely depending on it's importance. Ship is running out of oxygen? Oh yeah, I'm tracking it down to the second. Bumming around the market shopping? I'm going to just wave my hand and say "It takes you all morning" and then be done with it. Some people like to always track it closely (as mentioned above), but it all comes down to how important the resource of time is to your group and the current story (at least to me).

I've dome some time tracking for a similar situation to @evo454 above, in that the party have crash landed in an inhospitable environment (the Old Duros Sector on Narr Shaddaa in this case).

However, time was not of the essence, I merely gave the impression that it was by continually letting them know how much time had passed.

Everything that I had happen, did so when narratively convenient, but just by regularly telling them "it's been X hours, Y minutes since you crashed" it gave them a sense of urgency, and made them think that the clock was ticking before a horrible fate befell them.

As an addendum to this, I have some players who are always wanting to craft and build things. I accommodate this by generally tracking projects over time as it is generally something I handle as a down time activity. If you have a player who is wanting to essentially construct a homestead you can schedule out the project and then have them make rolls to move through it as a skill challenge, with negative results adding time or money or difficulty, and positive results removing time or expenses or adding other boons such as a good supply of Presscrete precursor loam.

Wow this is an old thread.

But here's my 2 credits. (In reverse order)

One of the concepts that HappyDaze introduced to me was to assign a success threshold to tasks. For instance, the crew recently received a bunch of very old very used vehicles, none of which really ran all that well. Before delivering them to their Hutt client, they decided to do some vitally needed repairs! As the GM I figured that each vehicle warranted 3 successes per vehicle and with 8 vehicles that would take 24 successes. Each skill check represented an 8 hour work period.

The cool thing with this approach is that each player with the Engineer skill can make a check to tackle this project and since each engineer had an astromech that counts as a blue bonus die for having an assistant. (I would have permitted the other characters to add an additional blue die to assist, but no one volunteered ).

After some really awesome dice results, the project was completed in about two and a half days.

So that's a technique that you could use to determine how long 'long' tasks take to complete. Throw in some complications appropriate for the task (or have other NPC's drop in to interact with the non tech skilled PC's and viola! Adventure!

And back to the OT, one thing that I do as a GM is that I give other NPC's their own timelines . . . which I track. Several times I've dropped hints to the PC's that the OpFor is 'doing something' and 'intel' indicates that it's going to happen in '10 days' (for example). If the PC's ignore the hints than the NPC's accomplish that task.

In my most recent example, at the end of a session, the PC's were leaving a star system and let me know what their destination would be.

Great, I can plan that out. We knew what the travel time was and based on the NPC's interactions and goals, I planned out an action packed set of events for the PC's. (Nice).

The next week instead of following their travel itinerary the Captain literally arrived at the intended destination and THEN immediately left to ping pong back and forth to another star system with the ONLY effect being that he added 10 days of travel time to his trip.

My reaction as the GM was to have all of the events that I'd planned for the PC's to interact with to be 'resolved' without the PC's interaction.*

The session boiled down to, "Wow, PC's. You should have been here a week ago. We really needed you THEN. You missed all the fun!"

The PC's still had a bunch of NPC interactions, but it was mostly them learning about recent events that had transpired and . . . everyone was gearing up for the next big event (scheduled to occur in 50 days in game time).

One event that was 'timed' I decided the NPC's finished early so those NPC's had sat around for two weeks waiting for the PC's to show up.

* I realize there are some of you out there who would have just rolled your eyes at that player's antics and just moved forward with your planned session as if nothing had happened. But that ain't how I as a GM roll. (Aside from the fact that I'm a vile evil minded GM . . .) I'm kinda running a sandbox here and if the PC's want to head in a different direction, I'll do my best to cater to their whims. But there are going to be consequences. Good and bad consequences but that in part lets the players see that their actions have an impact on the story.

On 10/19/2020 at 11:16 AM, Mark Caliber said:

* I realize there are some of you out there who would have just rolled your eyes at that player's antics and just moved forward with your planned session as if nothing had happened. But that ain't how I as a GM roll. (Aside from the fact that I'm a vile evil minded GM . . .) I'm kinda running a sandbox here and if the PC's want to head in a different direction, I'll do my best to cater to their whims. But there are going to be consequences. Good and bad consequences but that in part lets the players see that their actions have an impact on the story.

I think this is a great way to go if I understand you correctly. I love using independent time frames for the NPCs because it makes it feel like the galaxy exists beyond the PCs. The problem with rigidly sticking to a plan is that you'll spend a lot of time just trying to herd the PCs and in the process demonstrating that their agency is pretty much not a thing.

If time is tracked it becomes important, if it isn't, then it is hand-wave juice. I have noticed that not keeping track of the passage of time seems to give the players (and sometimes the GM) the idea that everything is narrative and open to constant rewind, etc. I make sure to let them know ok this has happened and time is not going to go backward now. I find that it makesit so that they are more deliberate about what they do, and they ask better questions.